hand.
He needed to harvest the darksoul.
Grabbing Roxy’s wrist, he turned her hand palm up
and dropped the heart into it.
“Here,” he said. “Hold this for me, would you?”
EPILOGUE
As for all the evil which is on me,
It is what I have done among the lords of eternity
Ever since I came down from my mother’s womb.
—Egyptian Book of the Dead, Chapter 17
GAHIJI HUNKERED DOWN IN THE CORNER, shivering with
cold in a cave few knew about and even fewer dared to
seek. Those who ventured here rarely returned, for this
cave was steeped in death.
But Gahiji did not fear death. He had been brought
through that journey long ago.
“Gahiji.” His name echoed through the space, seeming to come at him from all sides at once.
“You have failed.”
“I have.” There was no point in denial. It was plain
that he had failed, that the child was not in his keeping, that the witness to his perfidy and the perfidy of
his current companion had escaped their net.
“You have been branded a traitor. They seek you.
They hunger for your darksoul.”
Gahiji bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “They
do.”
“Did you betray me? Did you betray my identity?”
Gahiji wanted to answer the question with a
